April 28, 2004
Cereal

 “What’s the deal with Rice Krispies.  They’re not made of rice and they’re certainly not Krispy.”      

                                    Jerry Seinfeld  

      A constant.  There have been so few in my life. A backward glance reveals continual change.  There were myriad jobs, we’ve lived five different places in Grand Junction alone, and after marriage the progression went no kids, kids, no kids, grandkids.

     But closer reflection reveals one un-ending, never changing constant for as long as I can remember.  Raisin Bran.

    I’m a big time fan of ready to eat cereal.  Don’t call it breakfast food, because never, and I mean never, do I down my flakes during daylight hours.  Cereal, and this is a rule that demands legal codification, should only be consumed during the Ten O’clock News.

     The late news at our house each night elicits a Pavlovian response.  One is forced to focus on the night’s lead story while attempting to ignore hunger pangs emanating from the tummy.  Finally, Rick Thurtle intones, “We’ll be back after right after this” and you can bolt for the kitchen. Hit the pantry, Raisin Bran into a bowl, open the refrigerator, grab the skim, pour, place the milk jug back in the frig, close the door and return to the couch in time to hear what the real stars of the news, John Queen the Weather Machine and Fruita Bill, have to say about today’s “high”.

     A bowl of cereal as “comfort food” during the late night news is such an addiction that once at DIA I passed KUSA anchor Adele Arakawa and upon seeing her familiar face was almost overcome by the wave of desire for a bowl of Crispy Wheat’s N Raisins sweeping through my body.   And that was at two in the afternoon.

      I wasn’t always a Raisin Bran guy.  In my youth Wheaties were the flakes of choice.  The “Breakfast of Champions” not only sponsored “Jack Armstrong All American Boy” on the radio but also “The Lone Ranger” and my personal favorite “The Green Hornet.”

      “The Green Hornet” heard Tuesdays and Thursdays at five, illustrates all to well the changes in my life.  The Lone Rangers grandnephew, Britt Reid, (The Lone Rangers real name was Dan Reid) worked during the day as a newspaper publisher and at night became the Green Hornet, a one-man force fighting crime and or evil.  The newspaper he published?  The Daily Sentinel.  Over fifty years later the Daily Sentinel publisher I know urges the District Attorney to ferret out evil, i.e. the Redlands Fire Fiasco, and then goes fly-fishing.  But I digress.

     It wasn’t just Wheaties causing the occasional straying from the Raisin Bran path.  Total, Grape Nuts (much like pouring milk on a bowl of B-B’s but anything so hard to eat and totally tasteless has to be good for you right?), Frosted Flakes and Shredded Wheat (a real mouth scratcher until milk soggied) have wandered in and out of my life.

     Never a fan of kid cereals (oh to have the opportunity to tar and feather both the Lucky Charm leprechaun and Capt. Crunch) I’m a traditionalist when it comes to the milk on cereal remaining white.  If I feel the need for chocolate milk I’ll have chocolate milk and don’t require the assistance of Count Chocula.  And don’t get me started on what Frankenberry and Fruit Loops do to the color of milk’s colors although staring at the result of their altering bovine production might be excellent training for prospective EMT’s.

    Forget about France or Osama.  Public Enemy Number One in our life is the Cereal Variety Pack.  You know, the single servings of different cereals one supposedly can open, pour in milk and eat from the box.  Except fingers alone never can open the containers, which then requires using a knife.   And then the blade invariably goes clear through the box cutting the liner.  When milk is added the box leaks either all over you, the table, the floor or all of the above.  The world should know Satan designed the Variety-Pak.

    Aah but during the ten o’clock hour with your bowl of Raisin Bran.  That’s when all news is good news.